


Happy

by Sukei



Series: Slipping Out of Lovelessness [2]
Category: Hello Charlotte (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Assisted Suicide, Blood and Gore, Breaking the Fourth Wall, Child Neglect, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Enemies to Friends, Existential Angst, Fake Character Death, Friends to Enemies, Heavy Angst, I'm Sorry, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Kidnapping, Memory Alteration, Panic Attacks, Pre-Canon, Referenced Human Experimentation, Suicidal Thoughts, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Vomiting, another fic instead of sleeping whoops, help this child
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:47:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26414392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sukei/pseuds/Sukei
Summary: “I think I’d rather be pure white.”No more oily blood. No more ratty grey clothes. No more real. Just...White, just like the day she was made.She doesn’t pick up her books, just starts walking home, past the blood, past the bodies, past every single fake person in their tiny, little world. The Elevator speaks, but doesn’t scare her, her home is quiet, but she doesn’t mind, she trails down the basement steps ever-so-slowly, and waits at the bottom like a fall doorstep ready to be slammed into place. It’s the sound of whirring metal, the pleading words of a friend who’d backed out, and the vicious yell of a bitter worker missing a brother. It hits her body in less than a second, sputtering about on the floor like a dry fish as it splattered about pieces of hair, shards of bone, and chunk after chunk of meat.For a beautiful second, the world is silent, and white.Until Charlotte wakes up in the white chair, in the white room.
Relationships: Aiden & Q84, Bennett & Florence & Felix Honikker, Charles Eyler & Q84, Goodwin & Baldwin, Q84 & Felix Honikker, Q84 & Goodwin, Scarlett Eyler & Q84
Series: Slipping Out of Lovelessness [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1919107
Kudos: 4





	Happy

**Author's Note:**

> Prequel to "Birthday"

Charlotte remembers every single moment of her tiny little life, breath to breath, step to step, every memory is recorded in absolute detail; cursed as her creator. Her furthest memory is twelve years old, waking up in a pure white room on a wooden chair, white hair draped over her shoulders as “God” spoke to her. Ratty clothes on her body, grey and old and dusty, matching unkempt hair with half-formed braids and unending frizz. For hours she sat without feeling her legs, watching the wall, and telling an unseen figure just out of sight about the world they lived in. Repeated it over and over and _over_ so that it was forever scarred into her brain.

This is the House.

My name is Charlotte.

Hello, World.

_Hello, Charlotte._

She stood on pale limbs after an unknown amount of time, walking without purpose nor motivation, and pointedly not looking behind her as she left. The door swung open with an ambient creek, loud and overbearing in the silent, little hall. It felt like taking her first breath for herself as she turned in less than a second, finding the door gone without a trace. Reaching out a skinny hand, she traces the walls, rubbing the digits along the letters on each sign in the hall and finding her name.

It was plain, like her, the mirror already baring an air of familiarity, as if she’d spent forever in front of it. The black skirt around her waist felt tight and hot under her own judgement, the grey blouse dirtied and ripped in several places. The drawers were empty besides loose change and the tiniest of measures of clutter, like pieces of shiny paper and lost marbles. A bottle of pills was lost beneath it.

A camera lurked about from its perch on her wall, barely blinded in the spot where the ‘bed’ lay, a haphazard pile of dirty, likely stolen, cushions. A cube hummed nearby, happily humming a melody that she found herself copying after only a few moments; it beeped happily and chucked out a wrapped bar.

Fearfully, she snatched the offer, shoving it between her waistband and exiting the room in a hurry, wrenching open the nearest room and hoping it wouldn’t have any more of the creepy devices. A stained couch and shattered coffee table across from a wobbly table holding an old television and a microwave; the walls were painted with splatters of red in an almost manic fashion. The tv flickered as if to announce her presence, rapidly swapping from static to the multi-coloured bars of the unknown; she flinched, kicking away the remote she’d stepped on and slamming the door behind her.

Dizziness flooded her senses like an old promise, and she blindly navigated to what seemed to be the bathroom, already coated in a fine layer of dried disgust. Rather than daring to approach the sink or bath, she leans over the nearby toilet and heaves up nothing but tears and desperate confusion. She’s still shaking when it finally ceases, leaving her curled up and desperate for an answer besides ‘My name is Charlotte.’ Footsteps stir her from the trance of panic, leaving her carefully spooning herself heaving breaths and practically falling down the unexpected stairs behind door number four.

She scrapes her leg on the splintered wood, holding in the yelp and reorienting herself at the bottom, retrieving the food bar from where it had fallen. The granola was leaking out the sides from where it had snapped in two and breached the packaging, fake strawberry leaking out the innards like an omen. Skittering came across the metallic tiles in a near instant, an amalgamation of bug and house pet emerging from the shadows to practically maul the remaining foil. Again, she has the urge to vomit, shoving it down and tearfully backing away from the terrifying creature and its growls.

It feels like a maze despite the straight halls, some doors speaking back in hateful manners while others rattled in her desperate attempts to find entry before the creature finishes off its unexpected snack. She holds in a deep breath, stepping around puddles and veritable pools of blood surrounding the basement corridor before finally _finally_ finding herself in a (somewhat) normal space. It resembles a bunkroom, of sorts, little cubbies labeled with names and ID numbers with a long wall of lockers for storage. Voices ring through the space, and she panics, ducking under the nearby table while booted feet explore the kitchenette of their makeshift dormitory.

“...I still think you should cut down, you know?” She peeks out from under the bolted wooden frame fearfully, spotting a lavender-haired lady speaking in hushed tones to a brunette boy.

He frowns deeply, “What, just because the others can stomach this, I should too?”

The girl shakes her head, curls bouncing, “I know how you feel, we _all_ do, B- Ah, Bennett.”

Charlotte strains her neck, spotting the boy’s face and gasping quietly just as he laughs something bitter, eyes growing wet; her heart beats so loud she’s afraid he can hear it.

“Leave me alone, Flo…” He spits, stomping over to the bunks and swinging himself onto one of the mattresses.

“Bennett, I didn’t mean to-”

“Just. _Stop._ Let me sleep it off, at least.”

The girl hesitates, but eventually sighs and turns on her heel, eyes sad but apathetic, “Fine, we’ll talk when you’re sober.”

He snorts, “Don’t count on it.”

The lights flicker off near the beds and Charlotte is biting into her arm to hold back the sobs, she didn’t understand what was happening, what had happened to that boy, nothing made sense! She rocked herself on her heels, silently maintaining her panic as best she could, even as her hair trailed on the dirty floor and her limbs shuddered and shook. The microwave on the counter above beeped, just then, loud and all encompassing, shocking her into hitting her head on the underside of the wooden surface. She winced and froze, waited a beat, then tried to relax; the boy seemed dead to the world.

She crawled out carefully, still shooting careful glances at the bunkroom every other minute as she searched the tiny dorm for... _something._ Locker full of extra boots and miscellaneous bits of personality thrown in amongst a sea of hazmat suits all carefully labeled with a pre-written nametag. Nothing to show any sort of hobby, really, just little things like scissors or tool kits; not one change of clothes in sight.

The boy, Bennett, had a picture of someone and himself, someone notably not wearing a hazmat suit. The girl, Florence(?), had a bottle of hair dye and an entire box of loose parts, deep in the back, shoved far behind the suit was- _A leg!_

Charlotte stumbled back, hands cupped over her mouth in horror, she backed up until she hit the wall, eyes wide and full of terror at the implications the blood in the halls had shown; they were _murderers,_ no two ways about it! The ringing in her ears only increased alongside the blood beating in her head, panic overriding her senses until there was nothing but a fog of implications, the nightmarish scenario playing in her mind like a neverending promise of a personal snuff film.

Lost in the fear, she never noticed the blanketing sound of an avid inmate, walking down to his quarters without any expectation of a certain girl being there.

“Miss Wiltshire?” He asked, cocking a confused head.

As if caught in headlights, she turned to him with a start, noting the familiarity, the lack of alarm only serving to make her that much more confused.

“Miss Wiltshire?” He asked again, “I don’t think you’re supposed to be down here; you could get hurt!”

Her breaths still came in a hurry as her arms reached to hold herself close and stuttered out desperate lies like she belonged here, “I- I- I f-fell.”

“Oh, you needed help, huh? I can help out!”

Charlotte froze, terrified of what he could mean, of going out there again, of going back to _that_ room with that _thing_ and being alone with it-

“I-I d-don’t- I- I’m _sorry.”_

He seemed confused for a moment, then hit one fist against the other like an epiphany, rubber hitting rubber in a loud sort of squelch, “You must have hit your head! Well, if you forgot, I’m Goodwin, okay?”

“Y-you know me…?” She asked, desperate for some confirmation, for something to prove this was _normal_ and she could possibly be _okay._

“Yeah? I work with Doctor Huxley with the others. Maybe I should get him-”

“No…! J-Just...please help me.”

The blonde boy smiled passively and held out his hand for a moment, before thinking better of it and removing the glove before repeating the gesture, “I’ll get you back in one piece!”

-

Book of Truth

_Humans (Puppets?):_

  * _Me_



_Aliens (Workers): Look normal, but bipolar? Eat soap??_

  * _Goodwin!, Bennett, Flo, Baldwin(?)_



_Observer: Made me?_

_Omnicubes: Dispense food, record data, more?_

_Magcat: Live in the basement; ravenous, probably don’t eat people_

-

“Goodwin, do you, ah, ever wonder if we’re not real?”

He sputtered, soap spiddle spilling down his chin and she laughed at the image, stirring her out of the existential dread, “C-Caught me off guard there, Lotte, ha ha.”

“I knnnnnow, but it’s been really bugging me lately…”

He smiled in sympathy, “Is this about the accident?”

Charlotte sighed, hugging her knees and sliding her own soap over to eager hands, he thanked her as if she’d considered drinking it; one of the things she appreciated about her friend was that inclusion.

“Good, what if I told you it wasn’t...an accident…? Like maybe my memory was always just... _wrong.”_

The blunette put down his drink, sliding an arm around her shoulder and squeezing lightly, “Well, it made us friends, so I’d say it’s a good thing.”

She gave him a look, and he laughed, “Alright, alright… What I’m trying to say is, a couple years back, you were kind of a shut-in, Lotte.”

Charlotte snorted, “Moi? A scardy cat? Perish the thought!”

He shook her lightly and she smacked his arm, “You _know_ I didn’t mean it like that. You were just...Miss Wiltshire. The kid whose house we lived in that never questioned _anything._ When I saw you scared, I thought Huxley had finally replaced you with an android.”

“Is that really so strange? This is normal for me, now…”

“Well, we left the planet maybe six years earlier? You were just this ten year-old standing at the door like you’d been expecting us. Didn’t yell for your parents, or scream, or cry… You just... _watched.”_

“...Like I wasn’t real?” She murmured, sadly.

But he smiled, hugging her close and gulping down the last of the leftover lemon-scented, “You’re real, Lotte. At least to me.”

It felt nice to believe in someone, even if it couldn't be herself.

-

They were on the floor of the bathroom again, he’d been acting strange, distant, like the stranger she’d once been. Huxley had been loading him with work, Baldwin and him had gotten into a fight, there were a million reasons for their biweekly meetup to happen tonight. Yet, coaxing him into taking a seat had been like pulling apart taffy, stretching and breaking to meet the request, yet needing far more strength than it was worth to split. The tiles were clean when they shouldn’t be, he’d told her he’d stressed cleaned it the night of the argument. In vivid detail he’d gone over it again and again, snarling about his twin brother like a bitter enemy, and all for her.

The two had once had their organs taken again and again, had once become _housepets_ for a man who’d always be above them, but had stayed together somehow. Yet, when Baldwin had called her a snake, had said she was _waiting_ to hurt him like everyone always had...Goodwin had defended her. Friendship bracelet in hand she’d watched from the doorway as the spat escalated in step after step, little pranks turning to boiling anger at their duo as it broke up the brotherhood, or so he thought.

“I’ll go, if you want,” she’d said, before being punched hard enough to leave a bruise.

_“Never,_ say that, Lotte.”

_“Okay.”_

It was harmless, or so she thought, in a world so strange, who would really grow angry over swapped medical supplies or the spare bags of teeth turning up in the cereal boxes. It was just entertainment, something to pass by the long days where she couldn’t stomach leaving home and facing the faceless students downstairs, or the blood in the elevator, or just their _tiny, little_ world. It had escalated before she’d really noticed, flooding, toxic spills, minor injuries, unintended consequences, but her fault nonetheless.

Goodwin knew she meant it when she was sorry, he was the _only_ one who knew her, so why was he silently standing up, soap untouched and nothing sorted. She tugged at his arm insistently, and he pulled away from her clinging.

“...Goodwin, what’s wrong with you?” She begged, uncorking the cap from her own portion of soap and taking a swig of the horrid concoction, “S-See, it’s fine! I wouldn’t prank _you,_ I just...I wanted to he-he- _help-”_

Her arm came loose and in a single moment the soap was coming up, not even a few seconds allotted to finding a place for the foul liquid of her body rejecting the truce. Tears pulled at her eyes from the burn in her throat, the pure, awful result of one of the many reasons she and Goodwin would never be the same. Still, he turned on his heel, responding to the sympathy turned plea as she practically choked on her own disgust. He turned, heavy boots unable to find a place in the muck and slipping on the cold tiles and forcing her to watch every single moment of his head hitting the floor.

“...Goodwin…?” Came the shock, climbing into her senses.

“Goodwin!” She screeched, disregarding the stink of lemon-scented soap and stomach acid to lean over his motionless body, “Goodwin! Goodwin, _please!”_

But then his head turned to the side, sparking as the goop seeped into the crevices and into his insides, ruining their fragile integrity and leaking out oily black blood. She shuffled back, still on her knees, eyes filling with tears as they looked upon an empty-eyed face of their friend.

_“Please,_ anyone…” She begged in the silence, covered in inky liquid from head to toe from the harsh splatter and sputter of his circuitry, “He was _real, I swear he was real!”_

-

“Miss Eyler…Good morning…” She forced out.

“Wiltshire, you’ve been missing school…” It’s said in that sort of stern sympathy her classmate is known for aside from her red hair, “Did something happen?”

Maybe she shouldn’t bother, Scarlett wasn’t real, afterall…

“My friend, he…” She sniffled, clenching her fists and hating the world.

“Wiltshire, I’m so sorry…” She frowned, straightening her posture again and holding her arm, “I lost my brother a long time ago, so I know it must feel heartbreaking.”

Was that what she felt? Heartbroken?

“Listen, you’re a very good person, Charlotte,” Scarlett assured her, placing her hands on her shoulders and boring into her with steel-grey eyes for a moment, “You can get through this.”

No, she _can’t._

“He...everyone else hates me,” she tells her, tears dried up, slumped over as depression weighed on her back.

Eyler gave her a sympathetic sort of a smile, reaching into her bookbag for a moment before pulling out a worn, stuffed rabbit, still as pink as cotton candy.

“This is Felicia...she’s helped me get through a lot of dark times,” She admits, face red, “I can, ah, just get another one. I know it might seem a bit childish, but I really do hope it helps to know someone cares about you.”

Suddenly, the bunny in her arms seems too big for her little hands, seems to be looking right at her with caring eyes, seems amazingly _special_ in words she can’t find.

_“Thank you.”_

-

The bunny reminds her of Felix, maybe that’s why she visits him when Bennett isn’t around, the now blonde-haired menace acting like a pseudo-Baldwin in the twin’s mourning absence. She’d cried over that ‘corpse’ for hours, but maybe it was that fight that still made him blame her, the unrelenting knowledge that he knew what was best for their mutual friend. His glares hurt, cutting through her heart, so they both mourned on their own.

Felix reminds her of Goodwin, too, but maybe it’s just because he too has a hateful big brother, of sorts. His hair is more like Baldwin’s, his attitude more akin to Bennett’s on a bad day, and his entire life the spitting image of Huxley. He was still cripplingly young, as if he hadn’t grown at all in her four years of being in The House; just another thing she didn’t understand.

“Hey bug,” She greets him, smacking him in the shoulder and leaning over so her hair nearly meets the floor, “Whatcha up to?”

The boy stills, flinching at the action, but otherwise barely acknowledges her presence, “I will ask every day, if necessary, for you to cease calling me that.”

“Aw, don’t wanna be plant food?” She taunts, twisting absentmindedly in place as she watches his gloved hands glide across a page with perfect ink blots.

“S-Shut up.”  
  


Charlotte frowns, twirling a finger in her hair. ~~Please look at me.~~

“What did I do this time…?”

“Nothing. Stop bothering me.” ~~_Please,_ I don’t wanna see _him_ anymore. ~~

“I just wanna be friends!” She tries, peppy like Bennett.

“Friends don’t rearrange all the files full of _very important_ data…” He insists, crossing his arms timidly.

“...What do I hafta _kidnap_ you?” She drawls, remembering the numerous times Bennett had pulled him out of the lab by force. Felix seems to grow uncomfortable, picking up a syringe and just holding it until she’ll finally leave.

She’s not trying to be mean...she just wanted him to make sense.

“Human maggot!” A blonde calls, bursting in through the door she’d left open, happy as can be for ten glorious seconds before sending her a dark look, “What are you _doing_ in here?”

“Making friends,” she responds, timidly, still seeing Goodwin in every expression.

“Well, _leave!_ Mr. Honikker has stuff to do with me!”

“I do-?”

“Yup! Very important!”

Charlotte can see the lie in his gaze alongside the blatant threat, sees him glancing back at the pinkette hiding behind him, rubbing at his arm. Her eyes fall, it’s painful to keep looking at him, to keep seeing the _hatred_ in the eyes of _his_ friends. Maybe...maybe she was only _ever_ real to Goodwin after all. She wants to ask why he hates her, why Felix is so scared of her and the bunny that resembles him, wants to ask so many times why they were so _so_ mad at her.

_“You’re real, Lotte. At least to me.”_

But her name can’t be Lotte anymore. ~~And _Charlotte_ isn’t a good person. ~~

“Right, I’m sorry,” she apologises, barely able to keep the bitterness and misery from taking over, and smiles instead, just like Bennett would, “We can play later!”

His eyes burn a whole into her back the whole way out. ~~Because he hates her.~~

-

“Let’s kill her,” she hears one day, like a passing thought. It’s happy, perfectly so, the sweet high taking a mind to dark turns without really realising it. She mulls over it in school, tasting the words on her tongue and feeling out the idea of oblivion. Scarlett pets her hair in the library, whispering a sweet reassurance, like gooey gumdrops it falls over the death threat and makes it so much less terrifying. All of sudden, she wants to stand on the library table and shout out her own suicide, like the end that was awaiting her at home was the greatest, failed surprised party ever conceived.

A boy sits across from her, white hair pulled into a straight-edged ponytail, missing the messiness of her own poorly-made pigtails. His eyes are too bright, skin too pale, limbs fidgeting like her own as they mess with the edges of black gloves.

Suddenly, the words on her lips, curled around a smile like an excited child would on their birthday or on a holiday (Krampus had kind of ruined that for her).

“I think I’m going to die today,” she told him.

The boy didn’t look shocked for the longest moment, as though he were frozen in time for a precious few seconds and was telling her it was the right choice after all.

“Ah, returning to the Heavenly Kingdom?” He asked, seemingly finding his persona again.

Charlotte shook her head, finally finding herself, too, “I think I’d rather be pure white.”

No more oily blood. No more ratty grey clothes. No more _real._ Just... _White,_ just like the day she was made.

She doesn’t pick up her books, just starts walking home, past the blood, past the bodies, past every single fake person in their tiny, little world. The Elevator speaks, but doesn’t scare her, her home is quiet, but she doesn’t mind, she trails down the basement steps ever-so-slowly, and waits at the bottom like a fall doorstep ready to be slammed into place. It’s the sound of whirring metal, the pleading words of a friend who’d backed out, and the vicious yell of a bitter worker missing a brother. It hits her body in less than a second, sputtering about on the floor like a dry fish as it splattered about pieces of hair, shards of bone, and chunk after _chunk_ of _meat._

For a beautiful second, the world is silent, and _white._

~~Until Charlotte wakes up in the white chair, in the white room.~~

-

Like a memory come alive, there she is, listening to her own words on repeat, languidly opening the door and stepping out into a familiar hall. The difference is apparent, however, as Bennett climbs the stairs with a bloody, broken saw only to see a ghost. Maybe it was an accident, maybe it was vindictive, maybe it was the bruise on Felix’s arm as Bennett wore his stolen lab coat, or maybe it was just her, pure white where she stood, _alive._ ~~It only got worse from there.~~

She slides down to her knees, the ethereal aura gone in a flash as its replaced by _bitter, bitter,_ ** _bitter_** tears of a girl who had nothing left. But her hands are present as she holds them up to her face, her body is present as her knees painfully dig into the wood, and her _fear_ is present as Huxley follows them upstairs, and his expression _twists._

He’s going to _hurt_ her, no no no no no no, he _can’t,_ she doesn’t care if no one would miss her! And then she’s running, sprinting, desperate to live, to _escape,_ latching the door to the lab that isn’t hers and breathing, _breathing_ as someone pounds on it from the other side and yells nonsense through the jiggling knob.

She eats the insects meant for the plants for three days, siphoning the water from the ‘greenhouse’ sprinklers and rocking on her heels like it’s a million years ago in that dormitory, waiting for Goodwin to save her.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m _sorry,”_ she repeats _over and over_ again, murmuring it to the silent corridor as fear stretches across her senses and a million eyes seem to watch her every move. Aiden’s soft tones drift in from the kitchen, far from comforting considering how little he noticed her presence on a good day. Goodwin told her that she’d brainwashed him one holiday night back before the accident; the thought terrified her considering how much contempt her fellow residents already had for her.

She doesn’t trust him, _can’t trust anyone,_ and in seconds she’s unbolting the door and making a mad dash to the lower floor, shaking and shivering at each step until her school is within view. The boy is there, watching the sunrise, and she practically _slams_ into him, wrapping her arms around his waist and praying he was real, that he wouldn’t vanish and leave her to the wolves.

“Miss...Wiltshire?” He asks, deeply confused, and all of a sudden she’s back in that bunkroom with Goodwin, and everything is okay, okay, _okay._

“Nothing is _real,”_ she sobs into his sweater, every single hate-filled glance turning to malice as it boiled in her gut and rose up like a fire, “Someone made me, and- and now they’re _watching_ my misery. I’m not real, he _wasn’t real,_ I can’t _stand_ it…!”

“I won’t suffer anymore, not for this _stupid_ story.”

_My name is Charlotte._

_Hello, World._

“I’ve had _enough.”_

And he doesn’t call her crazy, doesn’t call her insane, he doesn’t even make her let go.

“So now you know,” he says instead, words full of truth as he tells the story of a loser god.

-

Book of Truth

~~_Humans (Puppets?):_ ~~

  * ~~_Me_~~



~~_Aliens (Workers): Look normal, but bipolar? Eat soap??_ ~~

  * ~~_Goodwin!, Bennett, Flo, Baldwin(?)_~~



~~_Observer: Made me?_ ~~

~~_Omnicubes: Dispense food, record data, more?_ ~~

~~_Magcat: Live in the basement; ravenous, probably don’t eat people_ ~~

_The God of This World: Charles, Father_

-

Time passes, and she dives deeper into malice, cooling her pain as though she was swimming in a pool of gel. She doesn’t forget, she can’t, so she swims, keeps her head above the water and _hates_ so she won’t sink back into that love she’d thought might’ve been there. It was fine, because she’d keep defying, keep living as long as she didn’t finish off the story, please the audience, _nothing._ Charles wouldn’t die either, not even if he wanted to, but the two still watched each day as a Vincent disappeared; he claimed to be throwing the bodies into a bottomless pit.

And she was fine, even if some days she was covered in blood as black as her heartstrings, clutching the stuffed rabbit of one more fake person and saying it means nothing when it does. Aiden will hug her sometimes if she coaxes him on a desperate night fresh after the latest murder attempt; before long, though, he takes to ripping out chunks of her hair as payment, turning more and more manic as she too descends into a sort of madness.

She takes a bat and smashes the biggest tv in the room Bennett had filled, the glass shattering around her form with a satisfying sort of sound that makes her almost forget the bitter tears on her face.

She takes a bat and smashes Huxley’s secret lab with a funny sort of joy and love in the action, and tells him to value his sort of son a bit more. Huxley was too much of a coward to love, she thinks, too much of a coward to be hurt by what followed when it festered in one’s old corpses.

She takes a bat, and smashes the brand-new Goodwin android, watching in grim satisfaction as the oily blood spills out and mars the tiles, hating every moment it existed in place of the hollow love she still shared with a dead man.

All in one night she screams and cries and yells with joy as the end comes at her hand, the control filling her body with a sheer _need_ to stay that way; to never again be spat on like a precocious beggar. It doesn’t change when she returns to her room and finds his corpse, fresh like her own from yesterday, covered with filth and grime that makes her wince from how much it would’ve made him itch.

Because it wasn’t fair… _Charles wasn’t_ **_allowed_ ** _to die…_

It was...the one promise she had, the one thing she had left in this empty, stupid, _tiny,_ **_bitter_ ** _mistake of a world._

And when the needle pierces her neck, she prays it finally kills her for good.

In a way, maybe it did.


End file.
